Abstract

ABSTRACT

Old Uyghur translations of Buddhist canonical texts have played a predominant role in the emergence of written sources of Central Asian Turkish Buddhism. Among these texts, there are also texts of the Esoteric Buddhism which has developed as a form of Mahāyāna and Mahāyāna Buddhism and contained liturgical practices such as magic and ritual. One of the dhāraṇī sūtra, which contains elements related to the esoteric Buddhist beliefs and practices that constitutes the subject of this paper, is Sanskrit Ārya-sarva-durgatipariśodhana-uṣṇīṣavijayā-nāma-dhāraṇī. Old Uyghur Ārya-sarvadurgati-pariśodhana-uṣṇīṣavijayā-nāma-dhāraṇī consists of block printed fragments preserved in the Turfan Collection at the Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. This Old Uyghur work, which was published by F.W.K. Müller in the edition of Uigurica II, has been prepared on the basis of block prints in the Berlin Turfan Collection. In addition to these fragments, which constitute the basis of the Müller edition, there is also a fragment of manuscript of this text, which is currently located in the Berlin Turfan Collection with the archive number of U 2378a (T I T 301.500). Based on the edition 224 and translation of this fragment of manuscript, this paper aims to introduce the manuscript which has not been published until now, to make explanations on the aforementioned manuscript, and to prepare the index of the text.

Keywords:Central Asian Buddhism, Esoteric Buddhism, Tantric texts, dhāraṇī sūtras, Old Uyghur, Uṣṇīṣavijayā-nāma-dhāraṇī.